Playing poker – my aunt Gladys with cigarette, me, my uncle Hugh, cousins Jan and Dale, my mother.Still playing poker – my mother with glasses, cousin Warren, cousin Ernie, aunt Gladys, cousin Jan and cousin Dale.The house on Old Plank Road. Between Milford and Wixom Michigan.
My mother and Henry bought this house about half an hour from Detroit about 1961. There was talk of moving there year around, but it never happened. We had a large garden and went up on weekends and for longer periods during the summer. We only owned 2 acres of the 40 acre farm, not including the barn. In 1967 someone bought the barn and started keeping chickens and pigs there, though they didn’t live on or near the property. The animals regularly escaped. The pigs dug up our garden and the chickens roosted on the porch. Before Henry and the man came to blows, they finally sold the house to the man with the animals.
Cousin Warren, Sister Pearl, Me and little cousin Blair
This photo was taken by my uncle Henry in 1962 at an old house we had in the country. It was between Wixom and Milford Michigan and about 40 minutes or less from Detroit. We had the old farm house and two acres, not including the impressive barn in the background. Maybe we were playing a trucated version of baseball. My cousin Warren seems to be coming in to touch base? I seem to be hysterical. Was small Blair in the game?
My Sepia Saturday tie in this week is not through the designated photo but through a fellow Sepia Saturday contributor who I got into a discussion with about racism in the USA today and in the past and somehow it came up that I have Canadian cousins and that one of them played football for the Eskimos until a recent achilles tendon injury. TickleBear turned out to be a big football fan and when I mentioned my cousin and said he was now playing for the BC Lions and that his name was Kamau Peterson, he (Ticklebear) was quite thrilled. I must admit that I’m not a sports fan of any kind and although I’ve kept up with my cousin’s growing family I have not really paid much attention to his football career. I had to go check his fb page and go to links to catch up. I knew he was doing well at it because that’s what we do, do well 😉 But I didn’t know the details. Here is a photo of my well known Canadian Football playing cousin, Kamau Peterson. He also has an awesome full back tattoo which you can see in progress here. You can see other Sepia Saturday offerings here.
Me at Old Plank in 1962. I was 15, the year after the memory.
Another memory from Ruff Draft 1990, this time mine.
I remember the first year I was old enough to try and buy presents for all my relatives. I must have been about 13 or 14. I just had my allowance. I saved up and got presents for several great aunts, seven or eight cousins, parents, a sister, numerous aunts and uncles and my grandparents. There was a dime store in Milford, Michigan where we used to go when we spent time up at the farm on Old Plank Road. There I bought several perfume atomizers for the great aunts and a set of wooden alphabet blocks for little Blair and a cast iron trivet with a country snow scene for my mother. I bought something for everybody. I don’t know why I didn’t make cookies or something. I don’t remember how anybody liked their gifts but I worried a lot about if they would or not.
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